Advantages

Disadvantages

handy location

Alice Springs Pioneer YHA

While I was in Australia we made are way to the centre and got to stay a night in Alice Springs. As we had booked the rest of our hostels through YHA we decided to keep it simple and book Alice Springs through them too.

YHA Australia is part of the world's largest backpacker accommodation network, Hostelling International (HI), providing more than 4,000 YHA hostels in over 60 countries. To be honest each hostel is individually run so the standard does vary. Each hostel is given stars Alice Springs was 4 star.

Alice Springs YHA had a reception where you could ask any questions you wanted. If you had any problems with your room or you wanted to book a trip all could be done here.

The man on the reception confirmed our tour to Uluru and was very friendly even though we had left it late to sort everything out which I thought was nice.

The reception is opened from 7.30am to 8.30pm. The gates of the hostel are locked after 8.30 but you can get in using your room key.

The kitchen, lounge and bathrooms were open 24 hours. The kitchen was not very clean even for a hostel. At first glance it didn't have pans just frying pans which was annoying boiling potatoes. Eventually we found a pot with no handle.

Flies were flying everywhere and ants were crawling over the plates. The free food shelf had lots on it for those who take advantage of this.

The kitchen was beside the lounge area and the tables and dinning area was outside. These tables had ants all over them but you would expect that as you were outside.

The laundry facilities and clotheslines can be used daily from 7.30am-1pm. You could buy washing powder or get change at reception.

You could book rooms which were multi-share (some multi-share had 6 per room or 4 per room), double/twin/triple rooms and family rooms (which accommodated 4 people). In Australian dollars multi-share adult cost $19-29, multi-share under 18 cost $15-19, $60-94.5 for a double/twin/triple and $84-98 for a family room. One Australian dollar is worth roughly 0.561 United Kingdom pounds at the minute.

My husband and I got a double room, which had an open wardrobe and two shelves. There was a small knee high table and patio chair. A small bin was provided and a small heater which was located beside the bed. They provided a large mirror. On the wall there was a clipboard telling you that you were not allowed to smoke.

The lights were odd, as there was a fluorescent one at the bottom of the room, which hardly lit up the room as it's on the ground and was so small. There were also two larger lights higher up on each side of the room, which gave you proper lighting. Not really sure what the purpose was for the ones on the ground.

The roof was corrugated tin. The whole room had a rustic vibe to it like a farmyard shed. There was steel piping running across the top of the roof where the air conditioners were located (which couldn't be turned up or down).

The décor was simple with yellow walls and green curtains. The windows were strange, as there was two long thin ones on each side of the room, which go the length of the wall. One is below the other. Curtains cover each window panel.

The room itself was quite large especially compared to other hostels. Unfortunately the bed was not comfortable the mattress was extremely thin even for hostel standards. You could feel the bed boards very easily. This meant that a comfortable nights sleep was hard. They did provide you with linen for your bed.

Luggage storage and security lockers were available in reception between 8am and 8pm and were free to use. Security lockers are $3 per box per usage. If you are leaving before 7.30am you will need to store your luggage/valuables the night before your tour by 8pm. Security lockers are behind reception and are quite small a handbag could maybe fit in but a small bag couldn't fit in. Luggage storage is not as secure but is locked. You can put a suitcase and rucksack in there.

Overall this hostel was located in a very good place as the shuttle bus took us from the train (Ghan) to our hostel. It was 2km from the train station and was very easy to find the shuttle bus and get to the hostel without any hassle. You were only 500 meters from the nearest food store so it was handy to go and get food instead of having to carry it and store it.

The staff was very friendly and helped you out with any questions you had about the area and sorted out any tours you were doing efficiently.

I don't think the hostel really deserves to be 4 star as the beds were very uncomfortable and other hostels we visited were better standard and had less stars. I wouldn't stay here if you were wanting luxury however if you are on a budget and you want no hassle then this hostel is worth while staying in.

After we stayed at this hostel we went camping as we made our way to Uluru (or Ayers Rock) so it seemed very luxurious and I wanted to stay in the hostel again.